Graphene Decorated with Nickel Nanoparticles as a Sensitive Substrate for Simultaneous Determination of Sunset Yellow and Tartrazine in Food Samples

In this paper, ultrathin graphene (GN) nanosheets were uniformly decorated with nickel (Ni) nanoparticles, as confirmed by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. This GNNi hybrid exhibited excellent accumulation and catalytic capacity for the simultaneous detection of sunset yellow and tartrazine, two colorants commonly found mixed in foodstuffs. The electrochemical reaction mechanism of sunset yellow and tartrazine were studied in detail on the GNNi nanocomposite modified glassy carbon electrode. In square wave voltammetry measurements, the oxidation peak potentials of sunset yellow and tartrazine were separated by about 250mV. This novel proposed voltammetric method has good selectivity which was successfully applied for the simultaneous determination of sunset yellow and tartrazine in some food sample extracts.